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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

Tour guides at the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola refer to this book as "The Bible." Covers every aircraft in the naval inventory from 1911 - 1990 with minor exceptions. A photograph, diagrams and concise details highlight each type. Explains the confusing designation changes of 1922 and 1962. Overall, if you have one book on Navy aircraft in your library this should be the one.

This book lives up to the standards of the early members of the Putnam series.It provides a brief history of the type, three-view drawings, specifications/performance data and Bureau Numbers (USN serials). Minor types, balloons and airships, gliders and foreign aircraft are dealt with by a photo or two and brief history.Add to that a very brief history of US Naval aviation, a detailed explanation of the five different designation systems used by the USN, markings an d colors, list of Navy aircraft by type (i.e. TB or F designations) and there isn't much this book does not have.Keep in mind, because of brief overview space limitations operational unit details are somewhat limited, usually just mentioning the first units to use the types or noteworthy incidents.

I can also highly recommend a similar effort by the same authors, U.S. Military Aircraft since 1909.

One note: the illustration of this book provided here is of the first (1968) and second (1976) editions. It was revised and issued in a third edition in 1990 with full color artwork typical of the later Putnam volumes.